A significant area of cardiovascular disease involves the build up of plaque inside arteries that feed blood to the muscles of the heart. These deposits can cause occlusions which reduce or interrupt blood flow through these arteries. Coronary artery bypass grafting is a surgical procedure that has been used to address occlusions by creating an alternative blood path that bypasses the occluded artery.
Before a bypass surgery is performed, a vessel needs to be harvested from a patient's body for use as a conduit in the bypass surgery. In endoscopic vessel harvesting (EVH) surgical procedures, a long slender cannula with a working lumen may be inserted inside a patient, and advanced into a tunnel next to the saphenous vein in the patient's leg, the radial artery in the patient's arm, or any other targeted vessel for grafting. A surgical tool housed at least partially within the working lumen of the cannula may be placed along the saphenous vein to dissect the vessel away from adjacent tissue, and to sever side-branch vessels along the course of the vessel to be harvested. The surgical tool may be configured to grasp a vessel, and may include one or more operative elements for cutting and/or sealing the vessel. While the surgical tool is used to operate on tissue, an endoscope may be used to view the procedure.
Applicant of the subject application discovers that sometimes during the EVH procedure, blood, fatty tissue, debris, or other bodily substance may stick onto the lens of the endoscope, and/or may smear the endoscope lens. Thus, applicant of the subject application determines that it may be desirable to have a cleaning system for cleaning the lens of the endoscope during the EVH procedure, or during any procedure which requires the use of an endoscope or other types of imaging device.